Musk Officially In Solar Roofing Business As Tesla Acquires SolarCity
PALO ALTO (CBS/AP) -- Tesla Motors now owns the nation's largest solar panel installer.
Tesla's deal to acquire SolarCity Corp. closed Monday morning.
Shareholders of both companies approved the deal last week by wide margins.
The all-stock deal valued SolarCity at $2 billion based on Tesla's closing stock price Friday. It was worth $2.6 billion when Tesla and SolarCity announced the agreement in August, but their share prices have dropped since then.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk -- who is also chairman of SolarCity -- wants to sell solar panels through Tesla's stores. Customers can buy them to power their homes and charge their Tesla electric vehicles.
Musk says the companies' first joint product -- solar roof tiles that look like traditional tiles -- should be ready for installation by next summer. He told Bloomberg that the price will be less than the cost of a regular roof.
"So the basic proposition will be: Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less and — by the way — generates electricity?" Musk said. "Why would you get anything else?"
Much of the savings will be thanks to reduced shipping costs. The solar glass roof tiles weigh about a fifth of traditional roofing materials.